The Conversation | 3 July 2014
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The Scan has long been a proponent of "teaching only universities" (see One size does not fit all unis). In this piece in The Conversation, Gavin Moodie observes that there is no reason in principle, practice nor historical precedent to champion or oppose teaching only universities. But were the research requirement of universities removed from the higher education threshold standards he doesn't expect any current Australian university to relinquish its research role. Rightly or wrongly, he writes, research has become so embedded in universities' ethos and activities since the 1960s that it is central to all … [Read more...]

The Conversation | 7 March 2014
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Virtual communities can provide an alternative to the on-campus experience but, as yet, there is little evidence to suggest that virtual engagement with peers and with content matter experts can provide the same benefits as being immersed in the intellectual culture on campus, writes Jason Lodge of Griffith University.
And do read this related essay by Kate Bowles on the creation of the space - or part of it, anyway - that the University of Wollongong occupies - For Leon Fuller.
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Much hype and discussion has surrounded the evolution of online … [Read more...]

The Conversation | 19 October 2012
Before the second world war, a very small minority of the population in Western societies went to universities. Most were men, most were from the social elite.
From the late 1950s that changed. With a growing movement towards gender equality, a progressively larger number of people attended university.
Even though there was talk about the value of liberal education and the virtues of a more highly educated population, it is probably true, as British historian Eric Hobsbawm argued in his masterwork, Age of Extremes, that the central reason for the post-fifties growth in universities was the need to train the upper echelons of the … [Read more...]